All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again.
Rivers flow to the sea, yet the sea never fills up, because the water returns to where the rivers began.
Meteorology
18
passages in this field
Show this passage in
The cited passage
What current science says
Credit where it's due: this is actually a decent observation. The water cycle (evaporation from oceans → cloud formation → precipitation → river runoff → back to oceans) is real, and this verse captures the general concept. However, the mechanism was unknown to the author — evaporation, condensation, and atmospheric transport weren't understood until the 17th century work of Pierre Perrault and Edme Mariotte. The verse describes the 'what' correctly but had no understanding of the 'how.' Still, compared to 'the sky is a metal mirror,' this one holds up surprisingly well.
What the text says
This comes from Ecclesiastes 1:7. 'All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again' — a surprisingly accurate description of the water cycle, written roughly 2,500 years ago.
Three honest ways to read this passage
-
As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
-
As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
-
As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.